


Nocturne

by snxwscene



Category: Life Is Strange (Video Game)
Genre: F/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-13
Updated: 2019-08-25
Packaged: 2019-10-27 11:57:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 20
Words: 22,456
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17766359
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/snxwscene/pseuds/snxwscene
Summary: Everybody in here just dragged their feet across the floor and stared at the walls with empty eyes -- but if you looked closely you could see their souls. How much they were suffering. How they were trying to fight their demons. Or even how they were starting to give in to them.[Life is Strange]





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> disclaimer/warning: This story contains strong language and heavy themes such as drug abuse, depression, suicide and mental illness generally. Make sure you're comfortable. Remember you're loved & you're not alone♡

It was late at night when I wandered along the corridors.

Those seemingly endless, white and blue corridors which I had gotten so used to over the past two years.  
Like my room. The uncomfortable bed. The scent of hand sanitizer that burned in your nose. The woman in the room across the hall waking up every night, screaming.

You get used to everything, eventually.

I stopped in front of one of the barred windows -- the full moon was illuminating the otherwise entirely dark night sky. Over time I had accumulated enough drawings of the sky, especially the moon, they could fill an entire book.

Wrapping my hands around the bars I stared out into the night -- the hospital was in the middle of the woods, there was nothing around here but nature. There had been an intern about a year ago who I managed to convince to sneak me out at night, so I could draw. It didn't work out more than just a few times though. The next few weeks there was a security guard assigned especially for this one corridor, to make sure it wouldn't happen again. And it didn't.

I settled for staring out of the window all day long, sketching trees and animals and people and their auras.

Everybody in here just dragged their feet across the floor and stared at the walls with empty eyes -- but if you looked closely you could see their souls. How much they were suffering. How they were trying to fight their demons. Or even how they were starting to give in to them.

I had given in long ago -- when I was sixteen I bought a bunch of drugs from some shady guy behind a diner and overdosed. My parents came home early that day and found me on the kitchen floor, rushing me to the hospital immediately. They managed to save me, at least that's what they called it, and I was brought here.

In the beginning they had me strapped to the bed and there was at least one person watching over me the entire time. When the medication and therapy started to show smaller results they left me alone at night, until eventually they removed the straps.

They were able to fix the extreme hormonal imbalance in my brain which they deemed the main source of my depression and anxiety and they seemed content. Still, I was far from being okay again.

"Madeline. What are you doing out of bed?" One of the nurses spoke up behind me and I turned around.

"Couldn't sleep," I replied, shrugging it off as he placed a hand on my back.  
"Let's get you back to your room, alright?"  
Pushing me through the door the nurse bent his head to the side and smiled at me.

"Now I better not see you roaming around again, if you want us to let you out of here next week."


	2. Home

"And you're sure you've packed everything?" my sister asked as she picked up the two small bags. I just rolled my eyes and shoved her towards the door, wanting nothing more than to get out of this place once and for all.

While Mia already went outside to get her car, I had to stop by the front desk and sign some paperwork.

The grey-haired nurse smiled at me in the same reserved manner everybody else in this place did.  
They gave me my pills, some copies of the files, and finally the paled gate buzzed loudly, closing behind me and I was allowed to leave.

Taking a few deep breaths I headed down the stairs, and as two security guards opened the front door for me I felt the fresh autumn air hit my face. I nodded at the two men, exited the building and slid into the passengers seat of my sister's car.

"Dude, mom and dad are gonna cry," she spoke as she hit the gas pedal and speeded down the narrow road, leading down the hill and out of the forest.

"Come on, don't act like I didn't see that one tear slipping down your cheek earlier," I replied, poking her arm. She let out a laugh and swatted my hand away. "Okay okay, but seriously, I missed you."

I felt a smile tugging at my lips as I looked out of the window, seeing the trees flying by.

"Don't you ever do something like that again, or I'm gonna kill you."

It was silent for a few seconds until we both chuckled, and I let out a sigh. "I'm still not exactly in a good place, but I'm better. They wouldn't let me out of there if there was still any shred of doubt," I explained, still not fully comprehending that I was free now -- well, more or less. There would be regular checkups with the local psychiatrist and I still had to take my medication, but I wasn't stuck in that prison anymore. I could live.

Although at first I was just mad that I had survived, by now I was glad I did. Being in such a dull and empty environment had taught me to find beauty in certain things -- like the way the leaves changed colour, or how peaceful a rainy night was, or how people's noses scrunched up while smiling.  
There was even beauty in the the hopelessness of the entire place, but it was far from desirable.

"A penny for your thoughts?" My sister's voice chimed as she stopped at a red light; I just shrugged.

"Must be weird just leaving, huh?"  
I nodded. "It is. I never liked that place, but I did learn a thing or two. About life and … other things."

"Oh I don't know if I ever told you that, but after you were admitted, dad bought a fuckton of books in order to understand what was going on. We all read some of them, and oh boy am I glad we did. I would have totally just assumed you were spiralling and just imagining things but dude…"

I looked over at her, eyes still fixed on the road.

"Yeah that shit's way more than just imagination." - "I realised."

We passed the town sign of Arcadia Bay and I felt a lump form in my throat the closer we got to our house.  
"Nervous?" I nodded again. "Don't be. It's home, you're safe there."

After a while, almost outside of town again, she pulled into the driveway; the door opened almost immediately and I caught a quick glance of our parents. Getting out of the car my mother engulfed me in a tight hug, slowly swaying me from side to side, brushing her hand through my hair.

We were only ever allowed to talk to each other, and there was always a table in between and people around us. I took in the light scent of her perfume, and felt her frizzy hair on my face and before I knew it I felt tears well up behind my eyelids.

"I'm so happy you're here," she whispered and I wrapped my arms around her even tighter. "Me too."

She then placed her hands on my shoulders and studied me from head to toe, wiping the tears from her cheeks. "I'm gonna go make dinner, you say hello to your father."

I smiled at her as she retreated to the house and turned to my dad, who held out his arms hesitatingly -- his hug was a lot more firm but I could feel his shoulders trembling slightly. "Welcome back," he said as he let go of me.

"Thank you."

Until dinner was ready I brought my bags upstairs to my room, only to find it almost completely empty.  
"Dad threw everything out. The uh … the doctor told us about how many of your breakdowns you had in here and recommended we'd revamp the entire thing. You know to uh- to avoid relapse caused by memories flooding back in and stuff."

Nodding yet again I turned to my sister who pointed towards her room. "You can sleep in my bed tonight, there's enough space for two. And then tomorrow we go buy new stuff for your room."

"That'd be great. I didn't like it anyway." - "Thought so."

A bit later we were called downstairs for dinner; and as we sat there at the table, the four of us, having lasagne, I felt something good inside of me. Just a little, but it was there. Everybody was smiling happily, the radio was playing some song from the eighties, and our cat was sleeping next to my chair.

It felt like I was given a second chance, and although there was still a rough road ahead of me, for the first time in forever I felt hope.


	3. Change

When I woke up the next morning Mia was already gone and, judging by the sounds from the bathroom next door, showering. I took my time fully waking up, rolled over to the side and stared out of the window for a bit. It seemed to be relatively late already -- the sun was up high in the sky. In the hospital I always had to get up at six in the morning.

Watching the birds outside for a little longer I stayed in bed until my sister came back into the room and gave me a bright smile.  
"Good, you're up. We're getting you new stuff today."  
I raised an eyebrow. "Stuff?"

Mia laughed and vaguely gestured through the air around her. "Yeah ... like, you know, furniture. And clothes. A haircut maybe? If you're starting over might as well go all the way."

Rolling my eyes at her enthusiasm I got out of bed and grabbed the jeans I'd worn yesterday and one of her shirts and shuffled to the bathroom.

Looking at myself in the mirror for the first time in what felt like whatever I frowned -- I'd lost a lot of weight over the past three years. Too much weight. The medication made me less hungry, but I'd also barely worked out at all so I decided I'd at least give that a try.

As I came downstairs a little later my mother greeted me with a kiss on the cheek and motioned for the table. "I hope you're okay with eggs and bacon," She said and I nodded, sitting down next to the cat.  
"Haven't had that in forever," I commented as I picked up my fork and began eating -- everybody else seemed to be done already. "Thought so," my mother replied and turned back to her notes.

The radio was providing much needed background noise while I had breakfast and swallowed my two pills with a swig of water.

"Alrighty," Mia suddenly spoke behind me and I jumped slightly. "You ready?"  
I just shrugged and she already pulled me outside and into her car. The one hour drive to a nearby city was mostly silent as I just stared out of the window, up into the blue sky while my sister hummed along to the songs that were playing.

The first thing she wanted to check off on today's to-do-list was the clothing -- apparently mom had convinced her to just have a hairdresser come up to our house tomorrow, which I was thankful for.  
"Just pick out what you like," she said to me as we walked into the first store. Last night I'd gone through my closet and put pretty much all of its contents in boxes to give away. It just all didn't feel right anymore, let alone that it didn't fit me.

Like I had expected, Mia came up to me just ten minutes later with ten different things to try on, while I hadn't even found one thing. This procedure then repeated itself throughout the next two hours until we finally left the last store and brought all the stuff back to the car.

"Remind me why I need all that formal stuff?" I asked while Mia started driving again. She let out a chuckle.  
"Well now that I'm going to college and don't have much time on my hands it's gonna be your turn to accompany mom and dad to their business parties."

I snorted. "Yeah. No- no. I don't do parties. Not anymore." - "Come on! When you were a little kid you always got so angry that you couldn't go with them! Besides, now that you're back, I think it would mean a lot to them. At least think about it, okay?"

With a short nod I directed my gaze back at the sky and sighed. Mom was a fashion designer and my dad used to be an architect, but he worked his way up to be the CEO of the company. I wasn't too sure what they needed their messed up daughter for, but maybe I should go at least once.

"Hey uh-... can I ask you something?" - "Shoot." - "What did they tell everyone?"  
Mia stopped at a red light and gave me a confused look. "You know ... where I went. Why I suddenly disappeared."

She grabbed onto the steering wheel a little tighter and I saw her blink a couple times.  
"You were in England. You got a scholarship to attend high school IN Hastings and we just couldn't turn that offer down."

My eyes grew big.

"Hey uh-..., it's pretty late. How about we grab something to eat and just order the furniture online?"

I remained silent as Mia already headed back to Arcadia Bay. It was still silent when she pulled into the parking lot of the Two Whales Diner and I tried to push away the memories that came flooding back in when I saw the familiar RV. It was silent when we sat down in one of the booths and looked at the menus.

Joyce walked up to us and broke the silence.  
"My, is that you, Madeline?" I nodded and gave the woman a smile as she grinned at me. "You've sure grown up over the years, have you seen Chloe yet?" - "No, I just came back yesterday," I informed her.

After some more small talk she took our orders and headed to another booth where a bunch of skaters were sat. I could smell the pot from over here but I turned back around when some other people walked in.

"How much?" - "Huh?" My sister gave me another confused look.  
"How much did mom and dad pay Blackwell to keep that under wraps and out of my file? The hell did they even do with my file? Mia, you can't just fake two years of school. I thought we were done lying." - "Technically you did attend school." - "Yeah, in the nuthouse!" - "Keep your voice down!" She urged me and I rolled my eyes.

"What? So the Hastings High School isn't a school in Hastings but the Hastings Mental Hospital? Awesome." I scoffed and crossed my arms in front of my chest.

"Mads, please. What else were we supposed to do?"

I was too tired from walking around all day to argue right now so I just closed my eyes for a second.

Soon enough Joyce brought us our food and we dug in, and even though I wasn't hungry anymore I kept eating, hoping to calm myself down.

We paid and got up, and as we walked out of the diner I saw another familiar face -- the man from the RV, I believe Frank was his name, talking to a boy in a red jacket, probably selling something.

It seemed like things hadn't changed too much around here...


	4. Lies

I spent the evening in my father's study, picking out flooring and furniture for my room, while he was doing paperwork at his other desk. Apparently they were working on a new deal with a bunch of other companies in order to expand - even more.

When I was done ordering things I just looked around the room for a while, sketching some outlines on an empty sheet of paper. I then flipped it around and spent the next half hour sketching my father - the way he was hunching his back, getting close to the documents since he still refused to get glasses; the way he propped up his head in his hand.  
He looked tired. He would never admit it, but he was still more engaged with everything than he actually had to be - he wanted to give as much support as possible, and that was slowly but surely burning him out.

"Dad?" I walked up to him and placed my hands on his shoulders. "Maybe you should call it a day and just relax a little, don't you think?"  
He looked up at me for a second, then down at the documents, then back at me. "Maybe you're right, Maddie."

I gave him a smile, turned off the lamp on his desk and shuffled over to the living room, where I stood in front of the big bookshelf for a while. My father dropped down onto the couch and turned on the TV, stretching out his legs and I heard a few bones crack slightly.  
Although I wasn't really in the mood for family time right now I hoped I'd get at least some answers from him, so I went to the kitchen and made some coffee for the both of us. As I returned to the living room however, my sister had sat down on the couch as well and the two were looking at me intently.

"Maddie…," my dad began and I sighed, sitting down in one of the armchairs, crossing my arms in front of my chest.  
"Why, Dad? Why lie?" I asked and Mia looked at the ground.

"Trust me, we only wanted the best for you. We wanted you to have the possibility to just come back and have nobody treat you any differently." - "Oh so thinking that I was abroad for two years is gonna make people just pick up where we left off?" - "Please, just try to understand. Just saying that you were sick would raise way too many rumours, you know how this town works. And the trace it would have left on your records -- irreversible. It could have ruined your future, Maddie."

I took a sip of my coffee, staring at my father. Actually this shouldn't be as big of a deal than it was to me, but I had found that lying was one of the core causes of my issues. I had been raised in this world of masquerades that I didn't even get a chance to figure out who I really was. I still wasn't sure if I knew now.

"I'm gonna start taking off the wallpapers in my room," I mumbled and got up to leave.

"We were going to have somebody come over and-" - "I'm going to do it." I interrupted my sister and hurried upstairs.

Why did I think coming back would make things okay? Of course a lot of things would come rushing back, of course everything else wouldn't have changed as much just because I did. This was still the same house, with the same people and the same secrets.

Since my speakers were still standing around in a corner I connected my new phone to them and put on some music, as I started to tear the wallpaper off.

×

My parents still had somebody come over the next day to finish what I'd started, and to take out the carpet in my room. Apparently the same people would be coming back once the wooden floorboards that I had ordered arrived to set everything else up.

I spent most of my time in the patio in our backyard, drawing or reading, the cat curling up in my lap. It came as a surprise that she still seemed to remember me - after being gone for two years I'd have expected her to just discard me from her memory.

The next few days there were people just in and out of my room the entire time, and I ended up rearranging the entire furniture by myself, probably ruining a bit of the flooring in the process already. But I didn't want it to look clean or perfect -- I wanted it to look like I had been living in here for more than just the past week.

I also finished setting up my new phone, along with a few recovered contacts -- I couldn't get back into my social media accounts however, so I decided to look more into that as soon as I got my laptop.

The next day, a Friday, I drove into town to pick it up and decided to have lunch at the Two Whales while trying to get back into the accounts. It wouldn't surprise me if they'd been deactivated or timed out or whatever it was called.  
I ordered a chocolate milkshake, some fries and a cheeseburger after sitting down in one of the booths at the far back, close to the jukebox. I had all my social network accounts (which were really only instagram and facebook) send an email to recover my login information and leaned back, observing my surroundings for a bit. The sun was shining outside and it was getting warmer, considering it was late June.  
The jukebox was playing Blue Suede Shoes, one of the truckers was tapping his feet along to the music, and the police officer next to him ordered a refill of his coffee.

When Joyce approached me I set my laptop to the side and gave her a smile as she placed my order on the table. "Thank you," I said and she smiled as well, making her way over to the back again.

The first email had arrived and I entered the newly assigned password, taking a sip of my milkshake. I almost spit it out when I saw that there were photos posted -- photos from England. Barely any with me in them, none to be exact, but there had been pictures uploaded over the course of the last two years.  
There were also comments from friends and apparently I had replied to them…  
"Mia what the fuck?!" I muttered and scrolled further.

"Language, Mads!" somebody said and I looked up.

"Victoria?"


	5. Reconnect

"So, like, when were you planning on telling me you were back?" she asked and I closed my laptop, staring at the girl.

"I uh- … I just got a new phone the other day and I didn't know if your number was still the same," I stuttered as she sat down across from me, a coffee in hand. She looked the same, just more grown up and probably a little skinnier.

"Hey, you okay?" she asked and I shook my head.  
"No- yeah, I just didn't expect to see you here." - "How was Hastings?"  
I stuffed some fries into my mouth and shrugged. "Definitely an experience," was my reply, and I figured I'd have to give answers like this all the time just to avoid lying even more.  
"Well you did stay there for two whole years. And you barely talked to any of us too! Not gonna lie, we thought you'd eventually just dump us." - "You know I wouldn't do that! Not without a reason." - "Hey!" Victoria called out and snatched a few of my fries.

"How is everybody?" I asked and now it was her turn to shrug.  
"Alright I guess. Nathan and I were talking about you the other day actually." - "Oh you were?"

To be honest I'd almost hoped my old friends had just forgotten all about me and moved on. It had been actual years after all. Then again, who knows what else my sister did to keep up the façade of me being abroad.

"Yeah, like, how you would be so there for the parties we're throwing every now and again. You so need to join the Vortex Club when you come back to Blackwell, I'll get you in."  
I raised an eyebrow. "I don't do parties anymore, Vic." - "Aw come on! Back then that stuff didn't even deserve to be called a party! This is way better." - "We'll see," I mumbled and took a bite of my burger.

"Oh, by the way, gimme your new number! I'll also send it to the others. And I'll add you to the Vortex group chat!"

I sighed, knowing that Victoria wouldn't leave me alone unless I obliged, so I just handed her my phone while she grinned triumphantly. She tapped around for quite a bit while I focused on my food, until she gave it back to me. While I finished she filled me in on every bit of gossip that was even remotely interesting -- to her at least.

After getting the check I stuffed my phone and laptop into my bag and paid; Victoria looked at me with big eyes.  
"You're leaving already? I texted Nate to come over already, he'd be so happy to see you!"

Letting out another sigh I gave her an apologetic smile. "I've still got some important stuff to do at home, but it was great seeing you again Vic! Tell Nathan I'll make it up to you guys, okay?"

Eventually she gave in, hugged me and I fled to my car, taking a few deep breaths before leaving the parking lot. I felt like somebody had run me over with a truck -- there was just way too much new information that I had to somehow digest.

×

Upon arriving at home I immediately made my way into Mias room, not even bothering to knock on the door.

"Hey, uh- knock maybe?" She snapped at me and I dropped my phone with instagram open on her desk.  
"Mind letting me know what the fuck this is?"

My sister sat there in silence for a while, mouth slightly agape, all colour slowly draining out of her face.

"Not that you didn't just post pictures, no, you had to reply to comments as well??" - "What was I supposed to do? Let people think you're dead?!"  
I scoffed. "Yeah right, did you regularly text my friends as well while you were at it?"

"Maddie, please … I was just trying to make coming back easier for you." - "Well have you ever thought that maybe I would wanna start over? That after two years of being locked up in a mental hospital I would be different, just like everyone else! You're unbelievable!"

Picking my phone back up I stormed across the hallway into my room, slamming the door shut behind me. Mia wasn't necessarily wrong, and I was sure her intentions were good, still it just felt wrong to lie about two years of my life.

"Maddie!"

Mia knocked at my door and I locked it, throwing myself into bed. Whether it was my period or the medication, I was awfully on edge today so I tried to nap for a while. I was already drifting away when my phone started vibrating on the nightstand.

Letting out a sigh I grabbed and unlocked it.

UNKNOWN  
Yo Madeline!  
Remember me? It's Nathan, we used to be friends until you bailed on us  
Kidding, Vic told me you had to bounce earlier.  
Hope we can catch up soon!

ME  
Nate, hey!  
How could I forget you? lol  
I hope so too! Let me know when you're free, really need to get out of the house no matter when.

Maybe they were right and getting back into the environment I was in before would be easier -- now that I had changed, and the others too. I still wasn't sure about going back to Blackwell; Mia did give me all her folders and old books so that I could try and keep up while I was away. After all, it would just be one more year. It could even be my chance to catch up on some standard high school life achievements -- not that those things really mattered in the long run, but I wanted to finally feel normal again.

NATHAN  
There's some dumb business event soon that my dad is dragging me to.  
Maybe yours will go there too and you can tag along?  
Free booze :D

I rolled my eyes.

ME  
I'll let you know, ttyl! x

There was another knock at my door.  
"Madeline! Open the door, please."  
Speak of the devil, I thought and rolled over to get up and unlock the door.

"What?" I asked and my dad placed a hand on my shoulder.  
"I understand that it's all a lot to take in after such a long time, and that you're angry and confused-"  
I held up my hand to stop him from going on. "I'm not confused anymore, dad. I see where you're coming from and I think if you just give me a little time I can warm up to it. I just need some space, alright? Catch up with my friends and everything."

He nodded and got up. "Of course." And before closing the door again he gave me a smile.

"Dinner will be ready at seven."


	6. Nathan

A week later Mia was sitting on my bed, eyeing me from the side as I finished doing my makeup.

"And you're sure you wanna go to this business thing?" - "Last time I checked you were the one who urged me to."  
She let out a chuckle. "Yeah, right."  
I took one last glance at myself in the mirror, satisfied with the white blouse and wine-red skirt that I had picked out. Mia had given me a pair of her black boots with relatively high heels; 'So you can see something in between all the grown-ups.'

"Maddie, you ready?" Mom called out from downstairs and I grabbed my phone and jacket, giving my sister a quick hug before heading out.

"Any code or secret language that I need to know?" I asked and my dad laughed.  
"Just be friendly to everyone," my mother said, giving me a bright smile.

When we arrived at the location I could hear an odd mix of classical and electronic music playing in the background. There were a lot of people standing around with champagne glasses in their hands, looking like they were talking smack about everybody else in the room.

"Alexander! Bethany!" Somebody called out and my mother swiftly grabbed my arm, pulling me along.  
"And you must be Madeline, am I right?" I just nodded at the woman who was standing in a cloud of rose perfume and didn't even bother to introduce herself. "Your parents have told me a lot about you, how was England, dear?" -- "A great experience, really," I replied with an exaggerated smile, which earned me a slight nudge of my father's elbow. The woman just grinned from ear to ear and took a sip of her champagne, sashaying over to another family.

"Who was that?" I whispered to my mother and she just shrugged, which caused both of us to start laughing.

"Alexander!" Somebody else called out and I looked up to see a familiar face -- Sean Prescott. Great. Nobody, not even my dad who had at least a little bit of sympathy for everybody, liked that man.  
Everybody exchanged some banter until I excused myself to go to the bathroom to take a breather -- that rose perfume was still all up in my nose.

NATHAN  
We heeere (this is boring as fuck already rip)

NATHAN  
wya

ME  
Just ran into your dad, yay

ME  
In front of the bathrooms

NATHAN  
be right there

I stared at the plastic plants next to me until somebody showed up in front of me.

"Mads? That really you?" he asked and I rolled my eyes.  
"I would hope so," I replied, giving him a smile. He patted my shoulder lightly -- Nathan had never been big on PDA of any form so I knew to appreciate the gesture.

"You're a lot taller than I remember," he stated and I scoffed. "That's the shoes." -- "Oh … makes sense."  
We sat down at one of the few tables and I slid my phone back into the pocket of the skirt.

"So how was England?" He asked which caused me to choke on the orange juice that the few people that were legally too young for alcohol were given.  
"Not bad at all," I replied. "Just really stressful a lot of the time, had a lot less free time than expected." -- "Yeah, I noticed," Nathan commented, taking a sip of his own orange juice that I was sure he'd already laced with something.

"You coming back to Blackwell after summer break?"  
I shrugged. "Dunno yet, but I think so. How's everything been?" -- "Still the same shitty town with the same shitty people," was his response as he eyed some people in the room.

"Any news about Rachel?"

I'd heard about her disappearance but I didn't know any details. Nathan looked down at the table. "No, the police are still searching."  
Then his father came waltzing over to the table, dragging my friend off to somewhere and he just shot me a partially annoyed and slightly worried glance. I just shrugged and went to find my parents.  
They were currently talking to an older couple and I stood around with them for a while.

A couple hours later I had sat down again, staring out of the window at the moon outside. There had been a speech about something called Pan Estates that had lasted just about an hour too long and now people were busy with the buffet.

NATHAN  
u there?

NATHAN  
come up to the roof, I got a surprise

We were in a smaller hotel so I wasn't even sure about how to even access the roof, but after telling my parents I'd be outside for some fresh air for a while, and searching around for a little longer I found a ladder.

"Aw fuck dude," I mumbled as I opened the hatch door up top and almost slipped thanks to the heels.  
"You doing okay?" I heard Nathan from above and I looked up, taking the hand he stretched out to me.  
"Great, thanks for asking."

He held up his hands in a protective manner as the hatch fell shut again, and he sat down on a bench. There wasn't much else up here but the view was nice; I sat down next to him as he pulled out a bottle of wine from underneath the bench.

"Okay, how'd you do that?" I asked and he smirked.

"A magician never reveals his secrets." -- "Yeah whatever."  
After taking a swig he handed me the bottle and stared at the moon for a while.

"Are you alright, Nathan?" I asked and set the bottle down after a few sips. He shrugged.  
"You know you can always talk to me, right? I'm sorry I didn't have more time, I should have made more time to talk to you and Vic and-" -- "You're doing it again," he interrupted me and I furrowed my brows.  
"Worrying too much. I mean it sucked ass that we barely ever heard from you, but you're here now. I've got my fellow mentally damaged drinking buddy back." -- "Now that's a title."

He gave me a crooked smile and grabbed the bottle from the ground.

"You still drawing?"  
I nodded as he took another swig. "Sketching, especially. I dunno, there's just something about graphite … Anyway, you still taking photos?"  
Now it was his turn to nod.

It was surprisingly easy to just talk to him again, even after such a long time. For a whike things felt like I had never even been gone. After a while he pointed out that we probably should head back down, and although neither of us really wanted to, he hid the bottle back where he'd gotten it from and I already climbed down the ladder.

Back at the party, if you could call it that, I headed over to my parents while Nathan was grabbed by his father again. I'd never imagined business events like this to be so boring, then again I didn't know what else I had expected.

Some time later, around twelve, we said our goodbyes to some people and on the car ride home I just stared up at the moon again.

NATHAN  
Blackwell would suck a lot less with you back there.


	7. Blackwell

The next few weeks weren't anything too special or exciting. I met up with some other friends and reconnected with everyone a bit, and caught up on some materials for the next schoolyear. Victoria and Nathan ended up convincing me to come back to Blackwell eventually.

It was now Sunday, the day before returning, and my anxiety started to act up more than usual. Mia had left for college a couple days go and my parents were both very busy, so I had a lot of time to think. Too much, that is.

My mother was in New York for some fashion show and my dad pretty much locked himself up in his office, like always when he was stressing out over something. I barely slept that night, even after tip-toeing into the kitchen to have a glass of wine.

I was awake long before my alarm went off, so I took my time showering and trying to relax - and failing. After getting dressed and putting on my makeup I went downstairs, had breakfast and took my pills.  
About halfway through my waffles dad showed up and brewed some coffee, placing a quick kiss on the top of my head.

"You holding up okay?" He asked and I shrugged. "Just nervous."  
I slid an apple and a sandwich from the fridge into my bag, happily taking the thermal cup full of coffee my father offered me.

Not much later I was in my car, heading towards town with the radio playing. I did have to get up earlier since we lived more out of town, but I much preferred this to the dormitories.

Grabbing my backpack and the coffee I locked my car and walked up the steps towards the building that I had last seen the day I bought my overdose from Frank.

"Look who it is! Maddie Carlyle!" Victoria called out as I walked up to the small group, giving me a hug. "Welcome back, girl." I forced a bunch of smiles as I was introduced to some other people and sat down by the fountain.

First days had always been my least favourite thing -- everybody always acted like they needed to prove some sort of status or whatever, when in  few years none of it would matter. Then again, had I not been away for so long I might just be the same … but who knew.

"Mads, you coming?" Nathan asked and I looked up, seeing everybody walking towards the school while he was standing in front of me. I took a deep breath and stood up, taking a sip of my coffee.  
"Sorry," I mumbled and followed everybody else, and with Nathan to my right and Victoria on his other side we entered the building.

I had a whole day of lying ahead of me.  
My first class was art, while Vic and Nathan would be in drama so I was on my own. I gave my friends a smile as we parted ways and I headed upstairs to the bigger art lab. For the most part we were told what this year would be composed of and what tasks we would face, and that after the photography contest there would be an art contest as well. Of course, our teacher encouraged everybody to participate.

"Hey, Maddie, is that you?" a strangely familiar voice called after me as I was hurrying to leave after the bell rang.  
I turned around to face Luke. "No way, you're back and didn't tell me? I'm offended."

Luke and I had known each other since kindergarten, so I felt even worse for not talking to him during the past three years.

"Dude, I am so sorry. I got a new phone and your number was different, so I thought I'd wait until school started again. Shit, seriously, sorry."

We headed downstairs and to our lockers that were still next to each other, just like always.  
"Hey no worries, I'm just glad I got a life update every now and again from across the pond." He gave me a smile and closed his locker again while I was still trying to get all of my books in there somehow.

"Hey, by the way, you still hang with Prescott and Chase?" -- "Yeah, why?"  
Luke let out a sigh. "Figures. Their Vortex Club is some shady elitist shit, so - I'm not going to tell you not to join - but that's exactly what I'm telling you."  
I raised an eyebrow. "I'll keep it in mind, thanks for the warning."

He looked past me for a moment and rolled his eyes, giving me an apologetic smile. "See you around, Maddie," he said and waved, walking off. Just a second later I heard Victoria talking to Nathan and upon turning around I faced my two friends, approaching me.

"How was art class?" Victoria asked and I shrugged.  
"Pretty lame, a lot of organising. How was drama?"  
Just like I had expected she began talking about every little detail that even remotely provoked her to be annoyed -- I sighed and let her vent while Nathan was busy with his phone.

The next few classes were rather uneventful, if not boring, and I was happy when I was heading for the last class of the day: photography. Apparently some super well-known photographer was teaching now and I was curious to see how he would approach everything. Obviously I had heard the name Mark Jefferson before, and Victoria gave me a very detailed presentation on his work the other day -- not without mentioning that he was incredibly hot, in her opinion.

Most people were already sitting down when I walked into the room, so I looked around for a while until Victoria motioned for me to sit at her table.

"Just wait until Mark shows up, I'm sure you'll like him," she said and gave me a wink, to which I just smiled and let her continue talking to Taylor.

Looking around the room I spotted a few vaguely familiar faces, along with some girl with short brown hair and freckles that I didn't recognise. Thinking that she must be new and probably just as anxious as I was, I gave her a friendly smile.

The bell rang and the door opened once more, and a man with dark brown hair, glasses and a goatee walked in.  
"Good afternoon, everybody. For those of you that are new in this class…," He stopped for a moment and scanned the room, stopping for a moment whenever he spotted a new student. "…my name is Mark Jefferson, but I take it you already knew that."

Victoria snickered at the bad joke and I started scribbling around in my notebook.

The man went on about how this year was going to be a very special one for all of us, and I couldn't help but notice how dark some of his phrases sounded -- I was prone to overanalysing everything though, so I shrugged it off. Still, I couldn't help but have an odd feeling in the pit of my stomach whenever his gaze was resting on me.


	8. Time

It took a while to get settled into a routine at Blackwell -- I managed to team up with Luke for an art project so we could spend some more time together. I always avoided conversations about the Vortex Club with whoever brought it up.

I stopped tagging along with Victoria as much and instead tried to do more on my own -- even if that was just having lunch by myself. It was almost therapeutic at this point; as much as I enjoyed the company, I needed time for myself in order to function. She understood though, so it wasn't like anyone ended the friendship.

October had just started but it was still relatively nice outside, so I was sitting on the steps that lead up to the school, reading my collection of Edgar Allan Poe stories. Somebody sat down next to me and stayed silent for a while, until I huffed and looked up at Nathan.

"What is it?" I asked, closing the book.  
"I know you've been avoiding anything related to the Vortex Club, but- would you wanna come to one of our parties?" he asked and I furrowed my brows. "You don't even have to join us, just come along. It's been too long since I saw you properly enjoying yourself." -- "Do you mean it's been a while since you saw me high?"

Nathan shrugged. "I'm just saying that it would be cool to have you there." -- "I'll think about it."

He gave me one or his crooked smiles and reached for my book. "Poe? That's some dark shit."  
I chuckled. "It's good dark shit though. Like your photography." -- "Huh? It's not really original though ..."

He gave me the book back and I stuffed it into my bag. "You're on a good way of giving it your own twist."   
At that he let out a laugh, almost with a bitter undertone. "Yeah, well, I've got my inspirations."

"Excuse me?" someone spoke behind us and I looked up to find Mr Jefferson staring down at us.

"Mr Jefferson-," Nathan spoke but the man raised his hand to shut him up. There was that weird shadow in his eyes again -- I'd spent two years in a mental hospital, by now I could tell when somebody was ... off.

"I wanted to talk to you for a moment, Madeline. Nathan, if you'll excuse us." Nathan let out a quiet scoff and disappeared towards the parking lot, while I got up and leaned onto the banister.

"Madeline, I noticed some of your sketches up in the art lab. They all have a certain ... darkness and cold depth to them. It's fascinating," he spoke slowly and I felt goosebumps on my neck -- his eyes were really creeping me out.  
"Thank you, Mr Jefferson," I replied, forcing a smile.

"Now I did notice you are trying to achieve a similar pattern in your photography, if you want I could help you with that." -- "I really appreciate the offer, but I think this is something I have to figure out on my own," I refused and held onto the strap of my backpack. "I can't rely on others to help me find my own style, no matter how talented they are."

Giving people what they wanted, in Jeffersons case compliments and the feeling that I was swooning over him and his work, was proven to help getting rid of them faster.

"Well, if you need any other help, feel free to come to me." He gave me a smile that was a little too friendly as he placed a hand on my shoulder and I nodded.  
"I will."

With that he excused himself and left, and I stayed on the staircase for a little longer. Maybe I was really reading too much into it, maybe that was just the way his smile always looked. I hoped.

NATHAN  
What did Jefferson want?

ME  
Offered me help to like reflect the style my sketches have in photos as well

ME  
He was acting weird though, a little creeped out

NATHAN  
Well you're creeped out easily so

NATHAN  
come by my room? Vic is here too

ME  
sure, be right there

The dormitories hadn't changed at all, but coming back into Nathans room felt weird -- it was all just a lot darker.

"Girl, Mark offered to help you and you turned him down?" Victoria spoke as I dropped my bag next to the door and sat down on the couch.  
"Anyway, I take it Nathan already told you about the party? So? You coming? It'll be fun, I promise!"

I should have just gone home...

"You're not gonna take no for an answer, huh?" I asked and both Victoria and Nathan nodded.  
"But I mean like, you can always just leave if you still have issues with that anxiety thingie. Just give it a shot, okay?" She dropped down next to me and looked at me with big eyes.

"Ugh, fine! You are the worst, Vic," I sighed and she gave me a triumphant smile. "And the best," she added at which I just laughed, resulting in her hitting my shoulder.

Nathan was just sitting at his desk staring at the both of us, but at the same time he seemed to just look right through us. Victoria rambled on about the party organisation and who would be coming etc, but I barely listened since, knowing her, she would change her mind about everything a couple more times. When she left to do some of her homework and I was about to pick up my bag Nathan knocked something over and I heard him curse under his breath.

"Fuck- those shots took forever! Fucking bullshit!"

I dropped the bag again and rummaged around in it for a while until I found the pack of tissues.

Handing him one while he was trying to save the envelope from being entirely drenched in soda, I sat down on the floor and began wiping the carpet.  
He just kept cursing quietly until we managed to get everything relatively clean again -- I shot a glance at the photos he was holding. It looked like nature shots, probably taken in the woods or up by the lighthouse.

"What?!" He snapped at me and I raised my hands. "It's all shit now anyway. That little slut of a model was way too expensive for this crap. I try out something different one fucking time!"

With that he ripped the Polaroid pictures into pieces and dropped them in the trash.

"Wanna redo them?" I asked and he looked down to me, still sitting on the floor.  
"What, as if you would actually model for me," he scoffed which caused me to shrug. "How about you just ask? Because, yes, I would. I'm probably not as professional but I mean-" -- "No, that would be cool actually." -- "But I'm only doing the nature stuff, not ... everything else," I added, pointing to some of his prints that were in the room. He let out a chuckle.

"I wouldn't even dare asking you to do those." -- "Good."


	9. Okay

"No, seriously, just lie down and- wait a sec, yeah … like that. Great."

I was currently dramatically staring up at the lighthouse while laying on the grass in between some rocks. Nathan and I had spent most of the afternoon out here already, and he seemed to be surprisingly happy with my more than unprofessional posing. He even shot some photos in between, while I was just staring at the sky for a bit or when a butterfly landed on a stone next to me. I heard the clicking.

After the sun had set we wrapped up the shoot and walked down the hill to his car, neither of us saying anything.  
"Sorry if I fucked your shots up," I mumbled while he started up the engine and headed onto the road.  
"I mean I'll know once I go over them again, but I'm pretty sure you didn't. Seriously, you did great. You really need to stop being so negative about yourself." -- "Old habits."

The rest of the drive home was silent and when I got out of the car and waved goodbye at my friend I felt really tired all of a sudden. After a long shower to get all of the grass and moss out of my hair I changed into one of the oversized shirts that I slept in and dropped down onto my bed.

NATHAN  
Thanks again for today, I owe you one

NATHAN  
Speaking of.. breakfast at the Two Whales tomorrow?

ME  
sounds great. 9?

NATHAN  
Sweet.

ME  
Alright, goodnight x

NATHAN  
sweet dreams

The next morning I, ironically enough, managed to oversleep. I hurried down the stairs while my dad was having breakfast and talking to the cat about the news. When he heard me open the front door he got up.

"Where are you going?" He asked.  
"Meeting a friend for breakfast." -- "A friend?" -- "Jeez, dad, yes a friend. And I'm late."  
Holding up his arms he gave me a smile. "Drive safe."

I managed to get to the diner just about ten minutes too late, parking across from Frank's RV. When I walked in I bumped into Chloe, who I had briefly talked to the other day, and headed for the back of the room.

"I'm so sorry, Nate. My alarm went off and I sort of just slept through it," I apologised before even sitting down across from him, and he waved it off.  
"No worries, I just got here as well. Already ordered though, hope that's okay."  
I gave him a smile. "Sure."

Joyce waved at me from behind the counter and I waved back, turning to Nathan once more. "So how'd the photos turn out? Anything useful?"

The boy gave me a crooked smile. "They're great, Mads. Better than the ones before, if you ask me."  
I raised my eyebrows, letting out a scoff.  
"I'm serious! If you want you can swing by the dorms when I'm editing some more."

The food came, so I just nodded, smiling. After about half the stack of pancakes I got my pills from my pocket and swallowed them with a huge swig of my milkshake. Nathan eyed me across the table, an eyebrow raised.

"What?" I asked and took another sip.  
"Didn't know you take meds now."  
I hadn't even thought about that those three pills might seem a little much; I'd just gotten so used to incorporating them into my morning routine like this.  
Pushing a blueberry around the plate with my fork I shrugged.

"You wanna talk about it?" -- "No. Later … maybe."  
He nodded, taking a sip of his milkshake and I cleared my throat.  
"What about you?" -- "You saw the stuff in my room, didn't you." -- "That and … I dunno. You just seem more out of it than usual."  
Nathan scoffed, crossing his arms in front of his chest. "Well I don't wanna talk about it either."  
With that he finished off his eggs and bacon and I watched him for a bit. "Let me know if you do."

Until we paid for the food the both of us remained silent, and when Nathan was about to just walk to his car and leave I held onto the sleeve of his jacket.  
"I'm sorry if I poked around somewhere I shouldn't have. I didn't mean to trigger anything." -- "Whatever. I gotta talk to Frank. Get stuff for the party."

I sighed and stayed right where I was for a few seconds, getting into my own car and driving to school. In art class Luke and I spent some more time on the project, although we were almost done with everything. He had this really colourful, almost comic-esque style and in combination with my rather dark graphite sketching it was certainly an interesting combination.

"You gonna be at the party tonight?" He asked after the bell rang and I picked up my backpack.  
"Yeah, Victoria talked me into it. But I'm not part of the Vortex Club." -- "Yet." -- "Jeez, Luke, I think I can differentiate between hanging out with friends and joining a cult."

He let out a loud laugh. "It is like a cult though. You better be careful." -- "Or else I'm gonna get sucked in the Vortex, yeah alright."

We strolled down the hallway in silence until he made a turn for the science lab and I walked into photography class -- there was barely anyone here so I just dropped my bag on my chair and looked out of the window.

David Madsen was creeping around campus behind some trees, like he was observing somebody; a sight we all saw quite frequently but nobody really paid attention to. Chloe had told me a thing or two about him and none sounded very nice, then again the girl had a lot of anger bottled up inside of her as it was.

Considering he'd served in the army, the paranoia could easily be caused through some form of post-traumatic stress disorder.  
I shook my head at still catching myself overanalysing other people and their mental state, and sat back down at the table. A few other people had shown up in the meantime and soon enough Victoria strutted into the room, followed by Courtney and Taylor.

"Have you seen Nathan at all today?" she asked immediately after sitting down.  
"Uh- … yeah we had breakfast at the Two Whales. But he seemed pretty pissed and was gonna go talk to Frank when I left."

Victoria nodded slowly, tapping around on her phone for a little, huffing. "Well, he's not replying to my texts- wait why'd you guys have breakfast without me?"  
I sighed. "I helped him with a shoot, he thanked me by getting breakfast. Don't worry, Vic." She smiled and resumed talking to Courtney, probably gossiping about something that nobody really cared about.

Just as the bell rang Mr Jefferson walked into the room and began talking, reminding us about the 'Everyday Heroes' Contest like he did every day. Victoria and her posse were talking about the party the entire time and the printer at the back of the room was malfunctioning -- I felt everything get louder and louder until it felt like a constant buzzing in my head.  
When the bell finally rang again and interrupted the buzzing for a moment, I hurried to get out of the room as quickly as possible, but Victoria held onto my arm.

"Have you handed in your photo yet?" she asked which caught Jefferson's attention.  
"I was just about to ask you about that, Madeline."

"I don't think I have any fitting ones. I'll be sure to hand something in, in case I get one," I said and powerwalked to the door before anyone could stop me again. Making my way to the bathroom as quickly as possible I dropped my bag on the floor and sank against the door from the inside, holding my head in my hands.

When I splashed some cold water on my face, took a few deep breaths and counted to seventeen with closed eyes the buzzing slowly died down until it was merely white noise in the back of my head.

"Are you okay?"


	10. Vortex

"Are you okay?"

I looked up to find Max, the quiet girl from my photography class, standing there at the back of the room. Had she been there the entire time?

"Yeah, I- I'm fine. Sensory overload. I get that sometimes," I quickly explained and picked my backpack up again.  
"You're Madeline, right?" I nodded as she washed then dried her hands. "I really like your style, it has this subtle eerie feeling about it while still carrying some light." -- "Thanks. I'm still- … working on it. I mean, we all are, that's why we're here."

Max gave me a shy smile and suddenly the bell rang. We looked at each other for a moment, then we started running towards the science lab and managed to slip inside right before Ms Grant could close the door.

The rest of the day neither Victoria nor me heard anything from Nathan, then again that was just how he got sometimes and we knew better than to annoy him. I packed all my things for the party and drove back to school, thinking that I could have easily just brought them along in the first place. Either way, after mentally apologising to nature for polluting it even more I made my way to the dormitories where Victoria was already waiting for me. I'd promised her we would get ready together.

"Good you're here, I'm completely lost! I don't know what to wear!" She immediately pulled me towards her dresser and pointed at a bunch of different outfits she put together. We spent the next hour debating over what would be best and when she finally decided I couldn't help but let out a dramatic sigh.

"Alright, let's get dressed then. I wanna see your fit too!"

I rolled my eyes and changed into the black skinny jeans and wine-red top, putting on the shoelace-choker and getting started on my makeup. Victoria was still in the other corner, probably about to change the outfit once more.  
Another half hour later she'd finally gotten everything ready and we left -- late, as usual.

"Fashionably late!" She exclaimed as we entered the swimming pool and linked arms. "Whatever you say, Vic."

"I'll go get you on the VIP list and see if I can find Nathan. Cool?"

I nodded as she disappeared somewhere and I looked around -- way too many people for my taste. But it wasn't as bad as I remembered. I never told anyone back then but any sort of party made me uncomfortable to the point where it caused me to physically feel sick. It was different now; I found myself enjoying the atmosphere and the feeling of the bass resonating through my entire body.  
People were dancing and just enjoying themselves, probably with a little help from the alcohol that totally didn't exist here.

After taking a deep breath I walked around the pool a little, looking for somewhere to sit when I heard someone shout my name.

"OVER HERE!"  
Luke was waving at me from the side and I sat down next to him on a bunch of mats.

"Having fun?" I asked and he snorted. "It's alright. The music could be better." -- "Not everybody can have a music taste like yours."

The boy laughed and rolled his eyes, taking a sip of his drink. "I'll just take that as a compliment."

We stayed together for quite a while, not necessarily talking a lot but every now and again somebody came up and spoke to either one of us for a bit. I was just glad I kind of knew I had this small corner I could crawl into and maybe evaporate through the wall if something went wrong.

VICTORIA  
Yo Mads!!!

VICTORIA  
Get dat ass over here!

VICTORIA  
VIP section, now! CRAZY SHIT!!

Furrowing my brows I told Luke I'd be right back, slipping off the mats and heading for the infamous VIP section of the party.

"I swear Victoria, if somebody is throwing up I'll murder you," I mumbled and walked past the bouncer, looking around for a moment.

A huge group of people seemed to be at the back of the area where the sofas were placed. Upon getting closer I noticed what was attracting so much attention: Kate Marsh was straight up making out with a bunch of guys.  
"What the fuck…" I mumbled.

Somebody grabbed my arm and pulled me to the side.  
"Can you believe it?! Kate Marsh?!"  
I recognised the voice to be Victorias and when I took a closer look I saw she had her phone out and was filming the whole thing. Some other people did as well and I instantly felt sick to my stomach.  
Kate was always such a sweet girl and definitely not the type of person to get wasted, especially on purpose.

"What the fuck are you doing?! Put your damn phone down, Vic, seriously!"

She just gave me a bewildered look and shook my grasp off. Pushing through the crowd once more I blocked some people's views and tried getting at least one of them to stop filming.

Kate pulled away from the guys and stumbled over, the crowd immediately became smaller and some people even seemed like they wanted to act like nothing happened.

"Kate, are you okay?" I asked and knelt down next to her. She looked up at me and I saw how pale and drowsy she was.

"I don't feel so good…" she murmured and I helped her onto her feet, guiding her away from the VIP-section.  
"I'm gonna get you outside, okay? Some fresh air."

On the way to the door I grabbed a bottle of water from the 'bar' and almost ran into someone.  
"What is going on here?" Mr Jefferson asked and I stopped walking for a moment, holding Kate so that she wouldn't fall over.  
"Kate isn't feeling good; we're getting some fresh air."  
The man nodded. "Be careful."

I continued pulling Kate towards the door and sat down on the ground with her as soon as we were outside.

"Kate, here, drink this," I ordered her and opened the water bottle, handing it to her. She took a tiny sip and rested her head in my shoulder.

"What is happening?" she asked quietly and held onto her head.  
"Did you have any alcohol today, Kate?" I asked and she slowly shook her head. "Barely anything. Ouh my head! It hurts…"

The door burst open once more and Nathan showed up, looking down at Kate and me.

"I'll get her to a hospital," he said as though it was already decided. Taking another look at the girl I nodded. "I'll come too." -- "Nu-uh."

Already standing up again I gave Nathan a confused look. "What do you mean, nu-uh? I'm coming."

"It's fine, Maddie." Kate slurred and I raised an eyebrow. Nathan sighed and I helped Kate get over to his car; he thanked me and I told him to drive safely. He just nodded and I watched them drive off into the night.


	11. Chloe

The next morning I woke up to my phone ringing -- I had gone home shortly after Nathan brought Kate to the hospital.

"Hello?" I asked as I rubbed the sleep out of my eyes, checking the clock. 08:30am.  
"Hey, it's Chloe." -- "I know," I sighed which caused the blue-haired girl to chuckle.

"Can we hang or are you too hungover?"  
Letting out a huff of air I sat up and, since the room didn't start spinning, I told her I'd be there in an hour.

I'd hung out with Chloe a bunch of times since I came back, but usually not for long since something always got in the way. It was alright though, I wasn't too big a fan of spending longer periods of time away from home. As much as my whole mental situation had gotten better, I still needed a lot of time for myself in order to function.

CHLOE  
Junkyard, cool?

ME  
Omw

I got dressed in some jeans and an oversized hoodie and skipped down the stairs, grabbing an apple from the fruit bowl. Since it was a Saturday I assumed my dad was still asleep, especially since mom was going to get back home later today.

Scrolling through social media I finished eating and downed half a glass of water along with my pills. I left a note on the fridge, saying that I was out meeting with Chloe, and slipped into my shoes.  
The car ride to the junkyard didn't take as long since it wasn't necessarily in the centre of Arcadia Bay.

I already spotted Chloes truck from afar and parked next to it, strolling around until I found her near the train tracks.  
"So what's up?" I asked her as she took a drag from her cigarette. "The sky." -- "C'mon, you'd hit me for a joke like that."

Sitting down on a pile of car tires I looked at her as she dropped down next to me, handing me the cigarette. I held up my hand to reject it at which she raised an eyebrow.

"Just needed to get away from home again." -- "Like I said, you can always stay at my place. Hell, you can even get my sister's room if you don't wanna hear me snore."

She chuckled at that. "Thanks for the offer but I wouldn't fit in there. That whole rich people thing. It's all just so out of my league." She trailed off towards the end and stared at the train tracks.

"You're talking about Rachel, aren't you?" --"Where the fuck would she go without telling me? We wanted to get out of here together! No explanation. Nothing!"  
I remained silent while Chloe vented and got rid of at least some of her anger for at least a bit. Somehow, every single time I saw her, she always ended up talking about Rachel at one point or another.

"Were you happier? After you left?" she wanted to know all of a sudden. I just shrugged. By now, lying about it had become so easy for me that it almost felt like the truth -- and I hated myself for letting that happen again.

"It changed a bunch of things. I guess. I just know that things here don't suck as much anymore as they used to." -- "Well it's still the same awful shithole for me..."

I stared down at my feet. "I know you're probably sick of hearing this, but things do get better. It may take time and effort and a lot of patience, but things will get better. Trust me, Chloe." -- "What do you know about a bad life?" she scoffed and threw the stump of her cigarette on the ground, stepping on it.

"Money isn't everything." -- "Yeah right." -- "Do you think just having money would help you?" I asked and tried to not get mad at how she just completely ruled out the possibility that other people -- no matter how much money they possessed -- could possibly be suffering too.

"Hell yeah it would. I could pay off Frank, I could get my ass out of here and start a new life. I could find Rachel!"  
Chloe jumped up at that and looked at me.

"What? Don't you want to see Rachel again?" -- "Of course I do," I replied.  
"Then why do you look like somebody just hit you?"  
I shrugged, getting up as well and walking towards the train tracks, watching a small bird picking at something in the gravel.

"Well well well, good thing I find you here, Chloe," somebody spoke and I turned around to find Frank Bowers standing nearby.  
"What do you want, Frank?" she spat and I stepped away from the tracks again, walking over to the two.

"I heard somebody talk about money and thought I'd drop by. Madeline, right?" I nodded.  
"What, you two know each other?" Chloe asked, raising her eyebrows at me.

"That's not why I'm here, anyway, do you have the money?" He asked the girl and she shook her head. "Not yet. I just need a little more time."  
Frank took another step towards the two of us and raised his finger in front of Chloes face, as we suddenly heard a car honking from the other side of the junkyard.

"You're lucky I'm here on business, Price. You better have the money next time."  
With that he stepped away and Chloe sighed, placing her hand on my shoulder. "Didn't know you knew Frank." I shrugged again, as she continued talking. "I mean, figures, you still hang with Prescott? You know what, don't answer that."

MOM  
Sweetie <3

MOM  
I'm home and I've got some designs ready.

ME  
Let me guess - you need my highly professional expertise?

MOM  
Always.

Good, there was my escape plan.

"Uh, Chloe, sorry to cut this short but i need to get back home." -- "Sure, go ahead. I'll stay here some more. Don't have anything else to do anyway."  
I gave her an apologetic smile and waved as I jogged back to my car.


	12. Chrysalis

I spent most of the remaining weekend taking care of the cat and my homework, while mom was always somewhere around asking me for my opinion on a new clothing line she was working on. I hadn't heard from Nathan at all; Victoria did ask me about him a couple times so I assumed neither had she.

When I walked towards the school on Monday though I spotted him, pacing in front of the building.

"Morning," I hummed and sat down on a bench. He stopped for a split second and looked at me, before continuing to walk around with his hands behind his back. Shaking my head I quickly texted Victoria that Nathan was still alive and stared up at the statue in the fountain.  
When more people arrived Nathan sat down next to me. 

"So you seen the video yet?" he asked at which I raiser an eyebrow.  
"Oh god, don't tell me somebody uploaded the video of Kate." He nodded. "It's viral by now, ha!" -- "Nate that's not funny." -- "Whateverthefuck you say honey."

Rolling my eyes I scrolled through social media for probably the first time since Friday and was disgusted at the amount of times the link had been posted and the video had been shared. The poor girl …

"What's going on with you anyway, why are you so damn nervous?" I asked the boy and he stopped the leg bouncing for a moment. "Got some business to attend to later." -- "Jeez, just be careful, alright?"

He glanced over at me for a second and looked down at his phone again. When I saw Victoria jogging over to us I waved at her and got out of my seat, entering the school. She was probably about to interrogate him as to why he disappeared off the face of the earth for two days which would then cause him to get angry again. I didn't want to be there when that happened, although I probably should be. I just really didn't feel like I could cope with anything aside from my routine today.

Most of the day went by relatively normal, Luke and I got an A- on our art project at which he immediately demanded we celebrate our success.

Photography class, which was the last class for that day, was the first I saw Kate after learning about the video.  
She looked terrible. I didn't mean to be rude or anything; she just looked awful. It reminded me a lot of myself a few years ago, and that was far from good. I just hoped she wouldn't fall apart completely because of this. From what I had observed people were gossiping and spreading rumours about her the entire time. People really were horrible.

I wanted to talk to her but Jefferson walked into class and started right away, and I noticed how Max at the table next to me fell asleep. I thought about waking her up but since Jefferson didn't say anything I let her be.

Then she suddenly jerked up and looked around, confused. I shot her a reassuring smile, like the first day here, while she slowly reached for her camera and … took a selfie? Jefferson shushed the class and rambled on about the word 'selfie' for a while, making a terrible pun in the process that Victoria snickered at -- of course.

"Now Max, since you've captured our interest and clearly want to join the conversation, can you please tell us the name of the process that gave birth to the first self-portraits?"

She didn't think too long before she responded. "The Daguerreian Process. Invented by a French painter named ... Louis Daguerre. Around 1830."  
Jefferson seemed slightly taken aback by the oddly confident answer from this quiet girl. "Somebody has been reading, as well as posing. Nice work, Max."

Victoria shot the girl an annoyed look and Jefferson resumed lecturing us about how we all needed to focus on our books more and that Max was way ahead of us, apparently. The bell rang and he reminded us about the contest yet again -- it almost felt like Groundhog Day to be in his class.

Max wanted to hurry out of the room but the teacher stopped her, and I scurried over to Kate.

"Hey…" I started and she looked up from her notebook. Some of the sketches looked very … unmistakable. There was a tree with a noose hanging from it. Shit…

"Look, I'm not gonna ask you how you're doing. I just want you to know that things will get better again. I promise they will. You might not believe me when I say this but I know how you're feeling, I've been there." She just stared up at me with empty eyes. "It's a very, very dark place and it feels like you're never going to be able to leave. But you will, eventually." I pointed at the drawing. "There are so many people out there who would miss you so much, even if it doesn't seem like it sometimes. If you need to talk, about literally anything, call me. Anytime. Doesn't matter if it's four in the morning. I'm here for you, Kate."

My speech had probably been a little too much and out of the blue, since she just kept staring up at me, her empty eyes glistening. "Thank you," she said, her voice merely a whisper and I smiled.  
"Anytime." -- "I have to finish my homework now."  
I nodded and rested my hand on her shoulder for a moment, before walking away.

I left the building, taking a deep breath before sinking onto the bench again. I didn't feel like driving home yet so I continued reading, until suddenly the fire alarm went off and people poured out of the building. Not much later Nathan was called into the principals office and I decided to stay a little longer.

When he came stomping down the stairs again after a while, cursing under his breath, I got up from the bench and raised an eyebrow.

"Nate-" -- "I'll be right back," he muttered through clenched teeth and I looked after him as he made his way to the parking lot. Shaking my head slowly I placed the bookmark in between the pages and closed the book, slipping it into my bag before standing up and following my friend.

When I arrived in the parking lot I was almost run over by Chloe's truck, and soon found Nathan hovering over Warren, repeatedly punching him in the face.

"Nate! Stop!" I yelled and sprinted over to the pair, pulling at Nathan's arm to get him to let go of Warren. "Nathan! That's enough!"

With a grunt he let go of Warren's shirt and the boy stared at us for a second. "Hey, come on," I murmured and pushed Nathan in the direction of the main building again. I held out my hand for Warren and he grabbed it, letting me help him back on his feet. "You good?" -- "I'll live," he replied and got into his car.

I sighed and linked arms with Nathan, who had scratches on his cheek.  
"Need your drinking buddy?" -- "Please."  
I smiled and we headed for the dormitories, and while I made myself comfortable on the couch Nathan pulled out a bottle of Whiskey from underneath the bed.

"What did Wells want?" I asked as he handed me a glass and dropped down next to me.  
"That little bitch Caulfield told him I had a gun!"  
I furrowed my brows, taking a sip. "Did you?" -- "For protection!"  
He jumped up again, downed the shot and refilled it.

"Well why did Max know you had it then?" I asked at which he shrugged. "Was probably hiding somewhere in the bathroom, I dunno!" -- "Who did you need protection from? What was that business you mentioned?"

Sitting down at his desk he set down the bottle. "Doesn't matter."

"Just, please, promise me you're not involved in anything seriously life-threatening."  
He turned around to look at me, but he didn't respond.


	13. Collapse

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You are not alone.  
> You will be okay.  
> You are loved.  
> ♡
> 
> (TRIGGER WARNING)

I woke up with a massive headache -- probably thanks to the whiskey and the fact that I hadn't smoked weed in an insanely long time. Then again I didn't even know if that could give you a headache anymore. Probably not.  
Either way, the day wasn't off to a good start to begin with.

I took my time showering, and had breakfast afterwards. I ended up skipping the first two periods since nobody else was at home anyway.

VICTORIA  
Where r u??

ME  
Chill, Vic. Having a headache.  
Coming later.

She caught me up on everything I had missed in chemistry, while Luke also told me about what I had missed in art class. After doing my makeup and covering up the dark bags under my eyes I packed my stuff, fed the cat and left the house.

It looked like it was going to start raining soon so I stuffed the raincoat that I had in my car into my backpack. The fresh air felt good. I'd always liked rain the most.

"Jeez, are you hungover?" Victoria asked as soon as she grabbed my arm and I shrugged. "Just a little," I replied and Nathan rolled his eyes, as he smirked knowingly.

"Anyway, like I already messaged you-"  
And like that she just kept rambling on about something weird the teacher had said during drama, which didn't even concern me in the slightest. I let her talk and, like I just did for the rest of the day, I didn't really listen at all. Everything just ran past me.

Everything came to a stop when Zachary came running into photography class.

"Yo, some crazy shit is going down at the girls' dorm! Check it!"

As everybody started getting up my gaze immediately shot towards Kate's empty spot, my stomach churning.  
"Zachary, do not come into my class like that ever again-" Jefferson tried to stop everyone but Victoria already pulled me out of the classroom with her before I could do anything.

Everybody ran over to the girls dormitories and Victoria kept going to the very front while I stopped dead in my tracks. There was Kate. Standing on the edge of the girls dormitory roof. Looking down to all of us.

My heart started racing and I felt sick as I staggered towards the front, hoping to be able to run up to her and stop her in time, although I knew I would never now it up here. She turned around and looked away from us, as somebody grabbed my arm again and stopped me from trying to stagger onward.

Nathan slowly shook his head as I gave him a panicked look, still holding onto my arm. Maybe somebody was up there already, but how could anyone be so fast? I could barely hear anything because of the rain.

There were people with their phones out, recording Kate yet again. I started to get dizzy and leaned onto Nathan for support -- he didn't step away.  
"This can't be happening …" I whispered and felt like my heart was about to stop.

Suddenly Kate was gone and for a moment I got scared she had jumped already-- but she hadn't. Everybody around was mumbling about what could have happened until the door opened and Max came out, with Kate in her arms.

I sank on my knees as I watched the two walk over to the ambulance that had arrived by now. Some people started cheering but it was almost drowned out entirely by the white noise in my ears.  
"Let's get out of here," I heard Nathan's voice from far away and was pulled back up on my feet.

For a while I was walking, but I just saw a hallway at the very edges of my blurred sight, the buzzing in my head growing consistently.

×

 

I woke up in a vaguely familiar room. After my eyes got used to the light I realised that it was Nathan's room. I found myself on the couch, and upon looking around I realised Nathan was sitting at his computer.

"What happened?" I asked and he turned around.  
"You passed out." -- "No shit," I huffed and laid my head back down on the pillow.

Looking around I noticed an odd stain on the wall next to the door. After shuffling around for a bit I got back up and examined it, coming to the conclusion that it was blood. Fresh blood.

I rushed over to Nathan's side and grabbed his hand -- he just kept staring at his computer screen as I examined his bruised knuckles.

"What happened?" I asked and knelt down next to him.  
"Max Caulfield happened," he spat and I raised my eyebrows. "That bitch got me suspended! First she snitches on me having a gun and now she accuses me of drugging Kate!"

He slammed his other fist on the desk. "Don't you dare ask me if I did!" -- "I wasn't going to," I mumbled and let go of his hand, rummaging around the top drawer for the bandages that I knew he had in there.

"I can do this myself," he snapped and tried taking the bandages from me, but I held my hand out of his reach.

"Nathan, please. Let me."

After blankly staring at me for a few seconds he let his shoulders sink in defeat and placed his injured hand on the table. I disinfected the wound in silence and wrapped the bandage around his hand, trying to be as gentle as possible.

"Thank you," he mumbled and I nodded, grabbing my backpack.

"I should get home. It's late," I said and Nathan got out of his chair. He looked tired, like somebody had drained all the energy out of him. I staggered towards the door, knees still weak from earlier.

"Take the bus, okay? I don't want you getting into an accident." Nathan spoke; I nodded again. "I will. You try and get some sleep, promise?" -- "Promise."


	14. Truth

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You are not alone.  
> You are loved.
> 
> (TRIGGER WARNING)

I called in sick the next day -- my parents had practically ordered me to stay at home before I could even ask them about it myself. I stayed in bed until noon, meaning I stayed in bed until I really had to get up in order to go to the bathroom. After washing my hands and splashing some water in my face, I stared at my reflection in the mirror for a while.

The dark circles that I usually had under my eyes were even more visible than normal -- I had constantly switched in between sleeping for a few minutes and waking up again, crying. It hadn't been a good night at all, but I hadn't expected it to be so it was okay. I'd drank a lot of coffee to avoid having a headache again. Since I had cried so much my nose and eyes, as well as the areas around them, were red. They had been for a while now.

I kept seeing Kate up on that roof whenever I closed my eyes, and just thinking that so many people had even filmed her then. When filming her was what got her up there in the first place. Humans really were awful creatures.

At some point however, there were no more tears and all that was left, was the sting in my eyes and the back of my head. It wasn't as bad as it had been last night. It was more like I'd just grown numb overnight. I hated that feeling the most -- feeling numb was the worst. It usually didn't last for too long but it was just so much worse than being sad or angry or confused or all of those at the same time.

Shaking my head I turned off the lights in the bathroom and went downstairs to the kitchen.

I didn't have an appetite at all, but I knew I had to get some food in my system or else I would pass out. I hadn't eaten since breakfast the day before. Aside from that I needed to still take my pills, and as weird as it sounded I already felt different not taking them just one time. Then again, the previous day had probably triggered a lot and my head still hurt so maybe it was just that. Just, I thought and almost laughed at how absurd that sounded.  
After eating some yoghurt and mixed in fresh fruit I washed down my pills and stayed on the kitchen counter for another hour, staring out of the window above the sink.

NATHAN  
Hey

NATHAN  
You at school?

NATHAN  
I need to talk to you.

NATHAN  
It's important.

ME  
Staying at home today

NATHAN  
Can I come over?

ME  
I guess

NATHAN  
Be there in 30.

I sighed and hopped down from the counter, refilling the cat food, shuffling back upstairs to my room. I got changed into a sweatshirt and a pair of shorts and put my messy hair up in a loose ponytail. My hand hovered over the makeup for a few moments but I shook my head and fell back onto the bed.

Not too much later the doorbell rang and I dragged my feet downstairs to answer it.  
"… Hello to you too," I murmured as Nathan rushed past me and went upstairs straight away.

After closing the door with a bit of a baffled look I scurried back to my room to find him sat at my desk, his laptop opened in front of him.  
I took a seat on the edge of my bed, facing my friend's back.

"What's so important?" I asked and fiddled around with the hem of the sweatshirt.  
"I need- …" He stopped himself, took a deep breath and started again, seemingly trying to stay calmer this time. "I need you to tell me the truth." -- "About what?"

Nathan turned around and held up the laptop. "This. There is no high school in Hastings that offers two-year-scholarships." He switched to a different tab and set the laptop back down. "And you're not in a single one of the photos uploaded over the course of the last two years on any social media or the website."  
"Nathan, what the fuck?" -- "Where. Were. You."

I stared down at my hands as he turned back around towards the desk to close his computer, scoffing.  
"Of course, everybody always-"

"I tried to kill myself."

It was silent for a moment. Nathan slowly turned around while I still stared at my hands that were wrapped up in the sweater sleeves.  
"You what?"

I bit my lower lip and took a deep breath, avoiding eye contact.  
"Two years ago, the last day of school before summer break- … I did research on what had the lowest chance of surviving and all that, you know? I bought a whole lot of stuff from Frank and overdosed." I tried swallowing the lump that was forming in my throat. "My parents, for whatever reason- they came home early that day and found me on the kitchen floor. They rushed me to the hospital and-"

I blinked a few times to try and get rid of the tears that were welling up in my eyes. "I didn't get better for a long time. That's why I was gone for so long. The scholarship was their idea and they never told me about it until I came back. They paid a bunch of people a fuckton of money to fill in that gaping hole in my files." Letting out a bitter laugh I wiped my cheeks with the sleeve to be safe.

"I didn't go to a high school in Hastings, but I kept up with school in the Hastings Mental Hospital a few cities away from here. I never even left the goddamn state, for fucks sake!"

After that it was silent for a really long time and the only thing I heard was my own heartbeat. Then Nathan got up and sat back down next to me, and that was the first time that I looked at him again.

"Are you better now?" he asked slowly and I sighed.

"I'm here, right?"

He nodded and placed a hand on my cheek, wiping away a tear with his thumb.  
"I'm glad you are."

And with that he leaned forward, and our lips collided.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (Are DMs a thing on ao3? I'm not on here much so idk but anyway if you're reading this and you ever need to talk, I'd be more than glad to listen and be there for you. My Twitter (that I barely ever use anymore) is @/ichigo__kei so if you ever feel lost or like you don't have anyone to talk to, just go ahead and send me a message!♡ Remember that things do get better, and no matter how hard it might be sometimes, holding on even for the smallest things is always going to be worth it, eventually. You will be okay.)


	15. Close

"Alright, you need some cheering up," Nathan said very determinedly and began rummaging through my DVD shelf. I sighed and stood up as well, telling him I would go get us something to drink from the kitchen.

"Snacks or anything?" -- "You're a snack already." -- "Shut up, Prescott." -- "Ha! That's a smile!"

I just grabbed a random bag of chips along with the cans of beer, checked in on the cats and shuffled back to my room, where Nathan was already busy pulling down the blinds.

"Find anything good?" I asked and he held up a bunch of movies. We ended up picking some random movie from the 1950s and I threw another blanket over the bed while he got the TV ready. He picked up the remote and crawled onto the bed next to me, pulling me closer to him with one swift move. Movie nights, or movie afternoons in that case, weren't a rare occasion for the two of us. Things were just a little different now.

"What?" He asked, holding up the remote and I just stared at him from the side. "You were so pissed off just half an hour ago," I noted and he chuckled.  
"Thanks, it's my fucked up brain." -- "Aw I have one of those too," I responded and we both started laughing for a bit, until we stopped, probably both coming to the realisation how absurd it was to joke about.  
Without another word he started the movie and we opened the beer cans during the introduction. For a long time we just watched silently, Nathan's left arm still around my shoulders. Very unusual for him; normally just touching his hand during a bad episode would get him to flip. I wasn't complaining though.

"Sorry I cried earlier, by the way," I mumbled and took another swig of my beer.  
"Don't apologize. I was gonna give you a whole fucking rant about how everybody always lies about everything. And you didn't lie to me -- not anymore at least. Being honest is the last damn thing I expected."  
I didn't say anything but just rested my head on his shoulder, at which he shifted a little and stretched out his legs to get more comfortable. At this point neither of us were really paying close attention to the movie anymore.

"Seeing Kate on that roof yesterday just- ... made me remember a shitton of things that I never wanted to think of again." -- "You had a panic attack, that's why you passed out too, right?" I nodded. "That in combination with the hangover probably wasn't the best." -- "Yeah no shit."

We finished watching the movie and the credits started rolling, when I lifted up my head and felt how stiff my neck was.  
Nathan laughed, and it was one of his genuine, loud laughs that he threw his head back at. A rare sight, especially now.

"Hey, you wanna go visit Kate?" he suddenly asked and my eyes grew big.  
"You think she's allowed visitors?" -- "Victoria said so." He shrugged, placed a quick peck on my forehead and got up from the bed.  
"You get changed and I'll drive you to the hospital, alright?"

I nodded almost aggressively and skipped towards my dresser, pulling out a pair of jeans and a dark green knit-sweater. Nathan said he would wait in the car so I hurried to change and put on at least a bit of makeup. The thought of seeing Kate again, alive, made me feel a bit better. And maybe also the fact that Nathan and I had finally gotten much closer, after such a long time. For some reason that made my heart flutter at the bare thought of it.

"Moodswings," I murmured as I picked up my phone and keys and left the house. As I got into Nathan's car he gave me another crooked smile at which I raiser my eyebrows. "What?"  
He shrugged and started the car, pulling out of the driveway. "That colour looks really good on you."

I felt the heat creep up into my cheeks and rolled my eyes to cover it up.  
"This is nice," he added, eyes fixed on the road.  
I glanced over at him. "Huh?" -- "Giving you compliments without sounding like a fucking creep."  
Letting out a huff I switched my phone back on.

"I could be mean and say you always sound like a creep ..." -- "But?" -- "But you're driving and I'm not in the mood for taking risks." -- "Fuck you, too," Nathan scoffed, but he smiled at the same time.

DAD  
You holding up okay? Need anything?

ME  
Doing better, I'm going to visit Kate at the hospital now :)

DAD  
Give her my best!

ME  
Will do.

Nathan stopped near the entrance of the hospital and checked his phone while I took a deep breath.  
"Shit," he spat and I looked at him.  
"Something wrong?" -- "I gotta get back to my dorm real quick. Forgot something. If I hurry I can be back by the time-"  
I held up my hand. "I can take the bus, Nate. You're not hurrying up and then getting into an accident. That's not happening." -- "... Yes Ma'am," he said and saluted.

I shook my head with a smile and quickly pecked his cheek, reaching for the handle of the door.  
"Get back here," he ordered and pulled me in for a proper kiss.  
After we parted again I stared into his eyes for a while. "I could get used to this."  
He grinned, rolling his eyes. "Drive safely!" I called out as I got out of the car and he waved at me before speeding off.

After I got some flowers it took me a while to find Kate's room, and when I did I bumped into Chloe and Max in the hallway.

"Madeline, didn't see you in class today," Max stated and Chloe looked over at me.  
"I wasn't feeling good," I replied and looked at the ground. "Probably scheming with Nathan," Chloe said wuth an annoyed undertone and I furrowed my brows.

"Excuse me?" -- "Max told me you practically handed Kate over to Nathan, so he could do whatever the hell he did to her." -- "Woah woah woah, what the fuck?"  
Max was obviously uncomfortable while I was just confused as to why Chloe was freaking out like that.

"I don't know what you're on about, but I'm just here to visit a friend. So can I please just-" Chloe took one step closer to me and I just now remembered how tall she actually was.

"Chloe, please," Max chimed in and grabbed her arm, at which the girl seemed to relax a bit. "Let's just go."  
The blue-haired girl shot me another probing look and left, Max however gave me an apologetic smile.

After sitting down for a moment and taking a few deep breaths I knocked on Kate's door.

"Yes?"


	16. Kate

Opening the door I was greeted by a very bright room, there were a lot of balloons next to her bed and a bunch of cards on the desk. Kate was sitting in a chair at the back of the room, drawing something.  
When walking past the desk I took a closer look at the cards -- there was one from Victoria and one from almost everybody at school.

"Hey Kate," I said quietly and she gave me a smile. She looked tired but a lot better than just a day ago.  
"Maddie!" Without saying anything else she got up and wrapped her arms around me, and I couldn't help but smile as I returned the embrace. Holding the flowers towards her after we let go again I still smiled.

"The Gladiola symbolise strength and the Baby's-Breath means innocence," I explained as she put the flowers in some water and placed them next to the cards.

"Thank you." She gave me another smile and sat back down, pointing towards the other chair so I sat down as well.  
"How are you?" -- "Better. I'm glad Max talked me down from there."

I nodded. "Me too." -- "And thank you for reaching out to me. On Monday. I remembered that and it cheered me up a bit back there, but it was all just kind of-"  
She stopped and vaguely motioned towards the room.  
"Like short-circuiting?" -- "Exactly."  
I peered over at her sketches and was happy to see that she was back to her color- and cheerful drawings.  
"How do you know what that feels like? On Monday you also said you know what it feels like …"

Letting out a sigh as Kate gave me a curious look, I scratched the back of my head. "Even if for different reasons I got to that point once. Two years ago? I didn't just up and leave because of some dumb scholarship. But that's nothing you run around with and tell everyone." -- "And you got better?"

She still seemed to doubt those feelings would fully go away, which I understood. For the longest time I felt like things were never going to change.  
"It took a while but yes. I'm sure you'll be just fine, Kate. And trust the doctors here, they know what they're doing."  
Seemingly relaxing a bit, the girl smiled down at her drawing. "I'm glad to hear that."

For a while we talked about who had already visited her and the cards she had gotten and for how much longer she would be staying at the hospital. Her aura had changed almost completely; of course, there still was some darkness there, but she seemed so much more hopeful. It made even me feel more hopeful about everything. Then again, this entire day had been way too good so far anyway.

"Hey, by the way … I kind of wanna talk to Nathan when I get out of here," Kate then said and I tilted my head slightly. "I uh … I dont understand. I thought you think he dosed you?" -- "That's exactly what I want to talk about. Anyway I kind of forgot his room number and you know how the map in the boys dorm looks …"  
I raised an eyebrow. "His room is number 111. But um … focus on yourself first, okay? Gosh this sounds mean, what I'm trying to say is that confronting him about it this early on might trigger a bunch of things. Negatively. Just take all the time you need to properly heal, yeah?"

Kate nodded and scribbled around in her sketch for a bit.

"You like Nathan, don't you?" she then asked. "Um … I guess I kinda do, why?" -- "I see the way you two look at each other. It says a lot."  
With a shrug I felt the heat rise up to my face again like I was some stupid teenager in a romcom.

"Anyway, you might not think he'd be capable of bad things like that, but be careful around him. Please?" -- "You're right, I don't. But I will keep an eye out."

She smiled and the sudden blush had left my cheeks again. The thing was that I did actually believe Nathan was capable of dosing up someone's drink for whatever reason. If he was just having a bad or weird episode that would be enough.

There was a knock at the door and a nurse came in, asking me to leave since she had to talk to Kate about something.

"Kate?" -- "Yeah?" -- "It's up to you if you believe me or not, but I know that Nathan is sorry too. That this whole video situation ended up like this."

The nurse shot me an angry look and I hurried out of the room, and Kate waved at me, smiling lightly as I closed the door.

I stayed in the hallway for a little longer, just staring out of the window and thinking about everything we had talked about. The fact that Kate was alive and well was finally starting to sink in and it felt like somebody lifted a tiny bit of weight off my shoulders.

"Madeline?"

I looked up to find my psychiatrist, Dr. Gomez, standing in front of me.  
"What are you doing here? Our next appointment isn't before next week," he spoke and I nodded.  
"Yeah I know, I was just visiting a friend." -- "Kate Marsh?" he asked immediately at which I nodded again.  
"I was just about to sit down and have a talk with her. Poor girl."

The nurse was still in the room so he sat down beside me and tilted his head to the side.  
"And how are you doing? That must have brought a lot back." -- "Last night was awful, honestly. I barely slept. But earlier today a friend came over and we watched a movie and just talked."

The man smiled knowingly, getting up as the nurse came out of Kate's room and handed him some papers before jogging off.  
"Well then, if there's no need for rescheduling, I will see you next week."


	17. Blood

I bumped into Chloe and Max a second time that day, when I made my way to check in on Nathan after he had left in such a hurry. Warren was trailing after the two as I pushed past them, briefly seeing Chloe stow a gun in her jacket.

"Chloe what are you-" -- "That's none of your business!" she snapped and I held up my hands. "Sorry. I didn't see a thing, swear. I have to be somewhere anyway."  
I continued walking and only heard her mutter something along the lines of "already called someone" but I didn't give it much thought.  
With a sigh I opened the door to the dormitories and skipped up the stairs, taking two steps at a time, excited to tell Nathan about how much better Kate was already doing.

But upon opening the door to the hallway Nathan's room was on, my heart stopped. He was laying on the floor, huddled together in the fetal position and kept muttering "I'm sorry." to himself.

Once the shock wore down I threw my backpack into a corner and dropped on my knees next to him.  
"Nathan? Nathan! Can you hear me?" I asked, placing my hands on his shoulders in order to turn him around. "No!" he whimpered, cowering down even more than he already was.

"Nathan, hey, it's me. It's okay. I'll get you to your room and get you fixed up, alright?"  
He didn't say anything but he stopped shaking so violently once I draped his arm around my shoulders.  With my other hand I grabbed my bag and we staggered around the corner, towards his room.

Evan, who was just coming out from his room slowly walked past us, a confused expression plastered all over his face, but he didn't say a thing until he disappeared around the corner.  
I almost lost my balance when trying to open the door to Nathan's room, while he was hanging on my arm like his life depended on it. Before having him lay down on the bed I grabbed a towel from his closet and placed it on the pillows. Closing the door behind me I immediately made my way to the drawer in his desk with the first aid kit. I quickly skipped out of the room again, fetching some water from the showers to clean his wounds with. On my way back to his side I turned on the whale songs he'd always put on to fall asleep, hoping it might relax him a bit.

"Who did this?" I asked as I started cleaning the blood off his face, him flinching almost every time I came in touch with his skin. "Was it Chloe?" He shook his head and hissed at the movement.

"Well it couldn't have been Max …" I thought out loud, now moving to disinfect the cuts on his cheeks and through his eyebrow. "It wasn't actually Warren, was it?"

Nathan moved his head up and down once and I looks at him in disbelief. Warren? I would have never imagined.

With a deep sigh I dabbed the last bit of sanitizer onto his forehead. Rummaging through the first aid kit I realised the bandaids were almost entirely gone so I grabbed my backpack and got out some of my own.

"Did he have a reason?" I asked, pressing the first bandaid on a cut on his jaw which caused him to hiss again. "Like, a good reason. Chloe had a gun. You didn't pull a gun on them, did you?"

He remained silent until I was done applying all the bandaids and some more sanitizer. I rubbed my hands over my face and sighed again. "Nathan why the fuck would you-" -- "They broke into my room! They were where they weren't supposed to be- ugh!" He slouched back down holding his side and I pulled up his shirt, only to reveal several larger bruises in the area of his ribcage.

"I'll be right back. Don't move," I ordered and left the room yet again, knocking on Hayden's door in hope he was there. After a short silence I heard a muffled "Yeah?" from inside the room and opened the door, the smell of marijuana immediately hitting me. 

"How can I help you?" He asked, making a wide gesture around the room.  
"Do you still have your mini fridge?" -- "Of course, why do you ask?" -- "I'm in need of anything cold, really. Something you would cool a black eye or a bruised ribcage with?"  
His eyes grew surprisingly big and he asked me if everything was alright, and I assured him the situation was under control.

Furthermore, he supplied me with two cans of beer and a cold compress he had in case of emergencies. I thanked him, promising to repay him as soon as possible, but he just waved it off.

Returning to Nathan's room I found him sitting up, his nose bleeding again. "I specifically told you to not move," I sighed and tossed a box of tissues his way. He immediately pulled out several ones and pressed them to his face.

Meanwhile I opened his closet and grabbed another, smaller towel, and wrapped it around the cold compress. With the help of some bandages I attached it to his torso and ordered him to lay on his side, so the blood couldn't possibly run down his throat.  
Once that was done I sat done on the floor at the side of his bed, facing him, holding the cold beer to his black eye.

"I'm sorry," he slurred, eyelids fluttering and gaze darting around the room, trying to focus.

"I'm not the one you should apologise to." -- "… sorry."

He closed his eyes for a bit and I grabbed my phone with my free hand, texting Chloe.

ME  
He's sorry. Whatever he did. He's genuinely sorry.

CHLOE  
You're a funny one, Carlyle.

ME  
I'm serious.

ME  
He's in a lot of pain.

CHLOE  
Deserved

ME  
not just physically I mean.

CHLOE  
Damn he's really gotten to ya huh

CHLOE  
You rich people are all the fucking same

CHLOE  
Do you even know how much of a creep he is? He did drug Kate and he also drugged me to take sick photos. if that matters to you at all. Maybe you're next who knows.

CHLOE  
Speechless huh? Thought so.


	18. Flawed

I closed my eyes and took a few deep breaths before flinging my phone into a corner of the room, where it hit the wall. Nathan furrowed his brows and stretched and arm out towards me; I slapped his hand before he could touch my cheek.

"Nate... I have to ask you something. And I need you to be honest with me," I said and he whimpered again as I took the beer away from his black eye.  
"Did you drug Kate? And Chloe? And you took pictures of them?" -- "…" -- "Nate, talk to me. Please?"

He shot up and ripped the bandages from his torso, throwing the compress across the room. Staggering towards the wall he began punching it again. Over and over. I had cleaned up the old stains just the other day, but it was already all bloody again.  
Getting up from the floor I walked over to him, as he was continuously punching the wall. Again and again and again.

"Nathan…" Again. "Nathan?" And again. "Nathan!" And again. I held my hand up before his fist could collide with the concrete once more and pain shot through my entire arm, but I clenched my teeth and tried to ignore it.

"Please just talk to me, Nate."

"I FUCKED UP!" he yelled, sinking to his knees, fist still enclosed by my hand.  
"I fucked up so bad …" His voice grew quieter and I knelt down next to him, wrapping my other hand around his fist.

"Tell me everything. Start to finish. I'm right here." -- "I never wanted anyone to get hurt. I fucked up. I did. He didn't. Of course it's always me."

His voice started shaking the longer he talked and he took a deep breath, looking at me in desperation. "Who? Nathan, who is he?" I asked, and his already red eyes began to water again.

"Mark."

I furrowed my brows. "Mark? As in Mark Jefferson?"  
He nodded and I felt my heart sink. I'd always felt like something was off about that guy but I never could put my finger on it.

"He- he told me we- we would always work together and-" -- "Nate, hey, take a deep breath, okay? We have time." For a while he remained silent until the fist that I was still holding relaxed a bit.

"He came to me and- he told me my photography caught his eye and that he- he would like to work with me. He asked me if there was a place we could turn into our studio and I told him about the bunker that my father had built. He was always so supportive of me. He listened to me and he complimented my photography and-"  
He stopped again, sniffling.  
"He put me in charge of organising models and- I fucked up so bad, Maddie. I'm so sorry." -- "What happened?" I asked, trying to swallow the lump that formed in my throat.  
"I- I gave her an overdose. She's gone. I never meant for anyone to get hurt. He- he said they wouldn't remember a thing. He never said they could die!"

He buried his face in my shoulder and I placed a hand on the back of his head. "Rachel." My heart stopped again. "She's dead. Kate almost died. I fucked up so bad. I'm so sorry. Sorry …"  
Tears were streaming down my face as I held Nathan tight, afraid he would crumble to pieces if I let go. I remembered the night he came to me and told me the doctor had diagnosed him with schizophrenia, and how completely ridiculous it was, and then we had gotten drunk to forget it all. At the time I didn't believe it, but it made more sense now. There was obviously a clear line of how far you could go for your art, and Nathan had gone far past it, but up until now his brain hadn't realised that. I assumed Jefferson had used Nathan's mental situation and acted as a father figure for him, to earn his trust and loyalty. And of course to have someone to blame should something go wrong. And of course Nathan had gone along with it. I felt sick to my stomach.

Nathan kept mumbling how he was sorry and I felt his tears seeping into the fabric of my hoodie.

We sat there for a long time, holding on to each other, crying, and when I lifted my head to look at the time it was well past eight.  
"Nathan?" I nudged him and he hesitated to look up, seemingly scared that I would punch him in the face right then and there. With a sigh I placed a hand on his cheek and wiped away the tears with my thumb.

"You should lay back down before your nose starts bleeding again," I said, my voice merely a whisper, and he nodded. While I picked up the still relatively cool compress and my phone from the ground Nathan crawled back into his bed, staring at the ceiling.

I placed the compress on his ribs again, and he held it in place while I crawled next to him and wrapped an arm around him. "I'm sorry," he muttered again and I shook my head.  
"You need help, Nate." -- "I know." -- "I'm gonna get you out of here and we'll fix this. I promise."

In response he brushed a few strands of hair out of my face and rested his hand on my cheek. "Why are you still here?"  
With a crooked smile I placed my hand on top of his. "Couldn't leave if I wanted to," I whispered, noticing how the tears had stoped flowing and all that was left were wet traces on his cheeks. Nathan wrapped his arms around me again, burying my face in his chest.

"Maddie?" -- "Mhm?" -- "You're the only one I have left."  
His voice was barely audible but it was enough for me, and only me, to hear. Immediately after saying it I felt a slight flinch and he held his breath. I wondered how long it had been since he had opened up to someone so much. If that had ever happened at all.

"You should get some rest."


	19. Darkness

I stirred, my arm extending to the side only to be met with the soft, cold sheets. Immediately I shot up, looking around the room frantically. Nathan had disappeared. There were no notifications on my phone other than Victoria asking whether I was coming to the End of the World Party or not. How ironic.

After taking a deep breath I glanced over at the clock, realising that it was almost eight. The sun had almost disappeared, the moon taking it's place, as I hurried out of the dormitories and towards the swimming pool. I cut the line by the wardrobes, considering I didn't even think to take a jacket with me in the first place.

The red lights flashed at a fast pace, making me lightheaded. The music was much louder than the last time, and it resonated within my stomach with so much more force and vigour. I felt sick.

My eyes travelled across the groups of people; the ones by the pool and inside of it, the ones dancing and the ones talking by the bar. Even though, should Nathan be here at all, he would be in the VIP section, I didn't want to risk missing him. The way he was right now … who knee what kind of trouble he would end up getting himself into this time.

"Woah, easy there," a faint voice called out as I apologized for bumping into whoever it was. The person held onto my arm and I looked up to face Mr Jefferson. I wasn't sure whether to vomit or punch him in the face. "Madeline? Is everything alright? You look like you need some fresh air."

I scoffed and shrugged his hands off, turning to leave.

"Hey! I'm your teacher, you better show me some respect!" he practically yelled over the music.

"People like you don't deserve respect," I murmured, knowing he couldn't hear it. I kept walking, until the bouncer by the VIP section stopped me.

"Are you on the list, missy?"

"Sorry, I don't have time for this," I said, trying to push past him. Just Then Victoria appeared, and I was actually grateful when she pulled me behind the curtain.

"Finally one of you shows up!" she exclaimed, throwing up her hands in exasperation. I furrowed my brows.

"One of us?"

"Yeah, I've been trying to reach Nathan all evening. He's seen all my texts but he won't respond. Do you happen to know anything? Cause I'm honestly getting the creeps. Brr." She shivered. "Anyway, do you want anything to drink? We got vodka, wine- … Hey, are you even listening to me??"

I blinked a couple times and placed a hand on Victoria's arm, giving her an apologetic smile. "I'm sorry, I really have to be somewhere. Rain check?"

"Are you sure?"

I turned to leave before giving her a reply and hurried out of the exit at the back, in order to avoid Jefferson. The brightness of my phone screen almost felt blinding.

1 missed call, 1 new message

My heart sank even deeper when I held the phone up to my ear and Nathan's voice came through. He sounded terrified.

"Maddie. I'm so sorry. I fucked up so bad. I'm- Theres nothing I can do to make this go away. If I could turn back time, I would. Believe me. I'm so so sorry it has to be like this. The storm, all the people … you should get out while you still can. Please. He's coming for me next. Maddie, I want you to go somewhere safe. Somewhere he won't be able to get to you. At least he won't get to you. I'm sorry. I hope you'll find your way. I love you."

I listened to the message a second time, and my heartbeat went from nearly having stopped into a frenzy the moment I heard the sound of the train in the background. The junkyard. Why the hell would he be in the junkyard?

On the way to the parking lot I spotted Mr Jefferson leave the swimming pool and head into the same direction.

"Fuck," I muttered, digging through my pockets as I looked around frantically. "Hey, Justin!"

"Heeeey Carlyle!" He said slowly. My eyes were still fixed to Jefferson who was now approaching the stairs. "What can I do for ya?"

"Can you distract Jefferson for a bit? Like, five minutes?"

Justin tilted his head to the side. "What do I get for it?"

I retrieved my findings from my pockets and held them out for him. "I got twenty bucks and a joint. You in?"

"Sweet. You got it."

He pocketed my offerings and took off in our teachers direction with his skateboard. Jefferson stopped to talk to him, but he seemed rather impatient. I hurried to my car and sped out of the parking lot, going way above the speed limit, but it still felt like I was too slow. It was like one of those nightmares where you had to run from an impending lethal threat, but your legs were made of jelly and every leap forward took much longer than it should. Almost as though you were trying to run from somebody in low gravity, except they were still moving normally, closing in slowly but surely.

I sped onto the junkyard grounds, nearly knocking over the rusty sign by the entrance. The car came to a stop and I jumped out of the drivers seat, sprinting across the wet grass. The wind was whipping through the treetops, nearly drowning out the sound of my voice. I didn't know when I had started to scream out his name, but by the time I realised my throat already began to hurt.

I finally made it to the other end of the lot and found Nathan standing by a pile of garbage. Taking one step closer I noticed that part of the ground was dug up.

"Nate?" I called out to him. His hands were tightly clenched to fists, and he stared at the hole in the earth like it was about to swallow him whole. And he would let it.

"Why are you here?" he asked, his voice raspy and choked up. He was crying.

"We can get you help, Nate."

I took another step towards him and he finally looked up at me. His eyes were swollen and red, traces of tears still lingering on his ghostly pale cheeks. "That doesn't bring Rachel back. And it won't fix Kate. There's no redemption for me here, can't you see that?" He sank to his knees. "Don't you see what I did? I killed her. In a junkyard. This is not a place to be buried."

He began clawing at the ground, his fingers digging into the earth around the small part that was already dug up. "Not for somebody like Rachel." His eyes overflowed yet again, small teardrops dripping on the back of his hand. "This is not a place to die for someone like her."

"And it's not the place to die for you either. We have to go."

"He's coming, isn't he?" A bitter tone laced his voice as a weak smile played around his lips; for a split second he almost looked serene.

"He is. Let's go."

Nathan kept digging deeper even as I tugged at his arm in an attempt to get him to follow me.

"Yeah. You're right." He said after a while and sank onto the ground fully, hands resting in his lap. "You should get out of here. You shouldn't have come here in the first place." Suddenly his eyes shot wide open. "You have to leave, Maddie. I don't want you to die too."

I practically dragged him away from the grave, and he still tried to get away. "Nate. You're not dying here, not today, and not before you get the chance to become really fucking old and happy."

"Leave me here. I deserve this. It's okay. I've accepted it."

"Nathan Joshua Prescott."

He flinched at the use of his full name. I let go of his wrist and crossed my arms in front of my chest, trying my best to push the burning feeling in my head to the very back.

"I know you don't want to die, and I won't let you. If you feel like you have to atone for Rachel's death or Kate's suicide attempt, this is not the way, Nate. If you die then that's it, no going back. If you live, and hold on for however long it is necessary, you'll have the chance to do good. It may not make the past disappear, but it will help to put you at ease. If you were to die now, what good would that do for anyone? Nathan, we may not be able to turn back time and undo these things, but we can make sure something like this doesn't happen again. You can be okay again. And you will be. Just, please, let's get out of here."

The sound of tires against the muddy ground grew louder as I kept holding out my hand to him, and he just blankly stared at me, eyes glazed over with a deep sadness.

"Nate. Come on. You're not alone in this, alright? I'll always be here."

Headlights hit the two of us and Nathan held up a hand to shield his eyes. I turned around only to see Mr Jefferson shut the door behind him, the light flooding in from behind obscuring his face. One thing, however, that stood out clearly in his silhouette, was the pistol in his right hand.


	20. Broken

"Mark..." Nathan uttered quietly, so much so that I wasn't even sure he heard him. 

For a few seconds he stood in front of his car, looking at the two of us on the ground, before glancing over at the spot where Rachel's body was buried.

"I see you've already begun preparations. Very good. Now if you could please stand up and cooperate, I would greatly appreciate it."

Nathan moved to rise to his feet and I got a hold of his arm. "Don't listen to him," I muttered. Mr Jefferson sighed dramatically.

"There's always some sort of complication, isn't there?" He took a step towards us and Nathan cowered slightly. I grabbed his hand and linked our fingers together, raising up my chin as I cautiously eyed the handgun. "Madeline, why have you come here?"

I stared into his eyes, forcing myself to remain quiet. Nathan held onto my hand so tightly I could feel the circulation being cut off.

"Madeline. I asked you a question, and you will answer." He cocked the gun and pointed it at Nathan. "Or we speed things up a little. I have places to be either way."

"What do you want?"

A smile crept up on his lips. "Now there's a good girl. Come on." He motioned for me to come over to him with his other hand, the gun still pointed directly at Nathan's head, finger on the trigger. I squeezed his hand tightly before letting go and standing up, walking over to Jefferson. He didn't lower the weapon, but his finger no longer lingered on the trigger. Still too close, though.

"Get in the car," he ordered, pushing me towards the passengers side. I stumbled over my own feet and held onto the hood of the car for support, looking around for anything that could potentially be used as a weapon. Nothing. Then everything happened too fast.

He finally lowered the weapon a little and my instincts kicked in before I could even think about anything. Somehow my hands found their way to his head and, as he seemingly hadn't expected an attack from behind, he hesitated and his head collided with the side mirror. A gunshot was fired and the bullet ricocheted from a barrel. I felt a jolt through my body like a lightning hit me when it barely grazed my shoulder, shattering the windshield immediately after.

With an angry scream Mr Jefferson turned around and hauled off, raising the gun into the air. Something crashed onto his head and he collapsed on the floor. I jumped over his stirring body and grabbed Nathan's hand, the both of us dashing around the massive piles of scrap metal and junk.

"You can't run from me!" Jefferson's voice echoed when my car came in sight. Another gunshot went into the air and both of us flinched.

I ushered Nathan into the passenger's seat before sliding behind the steering wheel, fiddling to get the key into the ignition. The headlights hit Mr Jefferson who was slowly staggering towards us, gun pointed directly at the car. I felt my heartbeat resonate in my ears when I reversed out of the junkyard, now fully knocking over the sign. Another gunshot was heard and it hit the car at the back. I prayed that it wasn't a tire.

"Maddie, y-you're bleeding." Nathan pointed at my shoulder when I pulled into the road and slammed my foot down on the gas pedal. "Maddie?"

"Quiet!"

"... S-sorry."

One more glance into the rear view mirror informed me that a car was following behind us, and though I couldn't tell for sure if it was Jefferson or not, I accelerated even further. Nathan sat in the passengers seat, nervously fidgeting with the seatbelt before reaching over to my side to do the same there. While he buckled me up, I could hear how quickly he was breathing.

"Nate, it's okay. We're gonna get out of here," I said, not only in an attempt to calm him down but myself as well. I could still hear and feel my heartbeat resonating in my skull. "Tell me five things you can see."

He laughed loud and nervously. "Maddie what-" - "Five things you can see, Nate," I urged him further and he finally complied.

"Uh- lots of trees. The moon. Houses. A stop sign. You."

"Good. Now four things you can touch?"

Another nervous laugh escaped his lips. "The seat." He poked the seat with his index finger, then moved his hand back up. "Seatbelt. Dashboard." He extended his arm toward me. "You again. Maddie what is this? Jefferson is still behind us and you're telling me to play some weird version of I spy?"

I sped around a corner and into a more crowded street. We were outside of Arcadia Bay now. Nathan's breathing had calmed down slightly, however he was still bouncing his right leg and hurriedly tapping his fingers on the seatbelt, eyes darting around in fear.

"Right, Jefferson is still tailing us so I don't need you having a nervous breakdown on top of that! Three things you can hear?"

He sat still for a split second. "Uh- the uh- ... the engine. My own voice. And uh- the music from the car in front of us."

I overtook several cars. "Two things you can smell?"

"Gasoline. The air refresher in here."

The tapping ceased and all that was left was the leg bouncing. I took a few deep breaths myself before rounding several corners in a randomized manner, until mine was the only car on a long road again. No matter how often I glanced into the mirror, there was nobody else.

"Do you think he's gone?" Nathan asked quietly, looking down at his hands. I shrugged.

"Hopefully. How are you feeling?"

"I should ask you that. You just got shot, Maddie. Are you sure your shoulder is okay? It's bleeding." His voice began to shake again. "This is all my fault! Why did you come to the junkyard? It could have all been over by now. I shouldn't have-"

I steered the car off to the side and into the parking lot of a truck stop just by the freeway entrance ramp and slammed down on the brakes. "Nathan! For fucks sake, stop blaming yourself for everything. Sure, you screwed up bad. But that doesn't mean you're responsible for every single thing that goes wrong."

A truck driver exited the small restaurant and eyed us curiously, and I prayed he wouldn't notice my bloody shoulder. Nathan sank into his seat. "I'm sorry." The dim light illuminated his face enough for me to see the traces of tears on his cheeks and the dark circles under his eyes.

With a sigh I leaned against the headrest and slowly reached out to take his hand that was trembling into mine. I tried my best not to wince at the stinging sensation in my shoulder.

"So what do you wanna do now?" I questioned softly, the knot in my throat making it hard to speak.

Nathan seemed to think for a while, his eyes glued to the neon sign by the entrance. Absentmindedly his thumb brushed over the back of my hand as he kept opening his mouth and closing it again, no sound making it past his lips. A good ten minutes passed before he spoke up again. "The hospital you told me about..." His voice gave in and it took him a few moments to continue.

"Do you really think I can be fixed?"


End file.
